Saturday, August 22, 2009

It would be easy to chalk up Vernon Wells recent success at the plate (at least relative to the rest of the season) as "Wells being Wells" given the fact that the Blue Jays are now out of playoff contention and that's when he usually heats up. Instead, let's just be happy that Wells has shown some sign of life and (like most years) hope he can carry it over into next season.

Wells came through with a clutch RBI double in the first inning Friday against the Angels, following that up with a solo home run in the 3rd, which proved to be the winning run. This month, V-Dub has cracked three home runs to go along with 12 RBI, one run driven in away from matching his highest output for any one month this season, which came way back in April. In his solid month of August, Wells has hit safely in every game but three, going 19 for 68 for a respectable .279 average.

It's easy to assume this type of month from Vernon is solely because Toronto is out of contention, like his 11 HR, 36 RBI output in the final two months last year, but let's just be content he's producing more like the hitter he should be. In fact, I'd be shocked at the end of the season if we didn't learn of hamstring problems, which kept him out of a good portion of spring training, weren't attributed to his slow start to the campaign.

What were you thinking Brett Cecil? That gaffe might have been one of the funniest moments and also one of its most depressing of the season wrapped int one, poignantly signifying the Jays fall from contention.

Cecil dropped a ball from Rod Barajas, and failed to call time to request a new one before firing the baseball back into the dugout allowing Jason Bay to trot from first base into third, where he'd later score. The problem was the ball Cecil threw away was live, and afterwards he blamed himself for the blunder.

Cecil wasn't smiling about the rest of performance either. Making his first start after missing time with a knee injury, Cecil got rocked by the Red Sox, giving up six runs, four earned, including a pair of long balls to J.D. Drew over 4 and a third innings. The 23 year old picked up his first loss in two months, which also came against Boston. In that game, Cecil was lit up for a total of five home runs, four of which came in one inning. Of the 11 home runs allowed by Cecil, seven have come against Boston.